House Republicans left an early morning meeting in the basement of the Capitol on Saturday in agreement: the ball remains in the President’s court. “There is no deal. No negotiations,” said Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.).

Speaker Boehner has kept the majority of his conference intact by refusing to acquiesce to either the Senate or the White House. The President on Thursday rejected the Speaker’s plan to raise the debt ceiling for six weeks to engage in broader budget negotiations.

Susan Collins (R-Maine) is crafting a potential compromise in the Senate, which many House Republicans loathe. It would kick the can down the road by raising the debt ceiling and continue funding the government at current spending levels through at least January. The plan, which hasn’t been scheduled for a floor vote, would allow more flexibility for agencies to deal with sequestration, delay the Obamacare medical device tax for two years and require verification for income exchanges. A Senate-House budget conference could also be created.

Rep. John Fleming (R-La.) said that the House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) spoke about the Collins proposal in the meeting. Fleming called increased White House oversight over sequestration cuts “very problematic.” The Collins plan is a “non-starter with us,” Fleming said. “We’d never go along with that.”

“They’re trying to cut the House out, and trying to jam us with the Senate. We’re not going to roll over and take that,” House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan told National Review.

But Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kansas) said that Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid won’t be easy to roll over either. “He is trying to find five Republicans that’ll be coerced enough to surrender Republican positions,” said Huelskamp. “And he’s been usually successful at finding those.”

Senate Republicans have had success in the recent past of finding enough House Republicans to forge a compromise. In the 2011 debt-ceiling showdown and the 2012 fiscal cliff debate, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) brokered a deal with Democrats in both chambers. McConnell has, however, largely been on the sidelines in this round of brinkmanship.

Five days before the government hits the debt-limit deadline, the House Republican conference is unified behind Speaker Boehner’s position. “It was like a giant group hug. It was kind of cheesy,” said Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) of the morning meeting. “[Rep. Louie] Gohmert praised the leadership. [Rep.] Joe Barton praised the leadership.”

“I went into the meeting thinking that we might be going to surrender to the President,” said Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who, along with Gohmert and 10 other House Republicans, tried in January to take away the Speaker’s gavel. “What I got out of the meeting is that we’re still standing strong.”

It is clear that despite their resolve, House Republicans are tired of the shutdown. Many entered the meeting in various states of undress, without a coat or tie. Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) looked like he just woke up; he wasn’t wearing socks. On the way to the morning meeting, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) and Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) told reporters what they really wanted. “I’m looking for a cup of coffee,” said Hensarling. “I’m looking for a donut,” said Foxx. “Real tired,” said Rep. Tim Griffin (R-Ark.), as he rolled his toddler in a stroller.

The DOJ should commence an immediate investigation as to the SOURCE of lobbyist/Foreign funds to even "create" the IMAGINARY "debt celling" being used to WEAKEN the United States. This is a FABRICATED problem that could have the most far-reaching DAMAGE to the credit of the Nation and value of the US dollar.

The People have a RIGHT to know EXACTLY which SOURCE of funds designed and implemented the "debt ceiling" plan and pre-meditated "default".

How is this already not a High Crime? These GOP leaders are EMPLOYEES. They can't refuse to do their prescribed duties and, what, if they are "good, loyal 'lock-step' members of their own political party' it somehow makes their Scienter to INJURE the credit rating of the United States less actionable in Civil and Criminal Court?

Either the necessary Scienter to damage the credit of United States is there, or it was not there. All the evidence and prior statements by Norquist, Cruz, Ryan and the Speaker unequivocally prove this "default" was pre-meditated. The "paid-for-Media" that was regulated under the Reagan Administration (i.e., by "killing the Fairness Act in the bathtub") seems to conspicuously omit ANY reference to the blatant breach of duty by Congress FAILING to collectively pass a Budget on an ANNUAL basis for the President to sing into law. This "default" strategy VIOLATES the express language of the Constitution and merits immediate charges by the DOJ lest additional damages foreseeably result.

There is no privilege that protects such crime and fraud on the rule of law and all "ideological" justifications advocating a path that injures the People are empty, immaterial and hollow.

"If the camel once gets his nose in the tent, his body will soon follow." - Arabic Proverb

The real American question is, should the republicans be eradicated or exterminated to ensure the survival of this once great ation? the choice is ours, not theirs, to make and the next election must never be allowed to go to the supreme republican circus for their opinion is tainted by their past "selections" and the terrible pain we all endured because of it!

Republicans hold a pep rally in the basement of the House over the debt ceiling & shutting down the gov't. Straight out of high school. How the hell can anything ever get done when over half the House has the mentality of adolescents and juveniles.

The Republicans' posture vis-a-vis the shutdown is akin to employees telling their employers that they'll show up for work, provided they get paid a bonus for doing so. The reason that most Americans view this tactic as untenable is the outright extortion that the Republicans want to extract from the Democrats . . . in exchange for doing their jobs!

Wow... no one is paying attention! The arms crossed Harry Reid (it won't happen unless its my way Reid) is just as guilty as the GOP. The left has NO idea what the T Party stands for, not even close. But they're easy targets when the left can blame them for all their troubles ( Like this BOMB that is slowing going off called Obama Care) .. Did anyone realize that half the country didn't vote for Obama? Well maybe those are citizens with a VOICE? The left doesn't want to hear criticism for all their wonderful (socialist) programs. Whats really the problem (and the Libertarians always have this right) is that if the government wasn't IN all our business and telling us thru 6 trillion laws and the control freaks all went home we wouldn't need blogs like this..and it would be heaven on earth...

I heard Boehner is trying to get thru to George W. Bush for counsel on this issue, but GW is scuba diving in his backyard pond hoping to find the WMDs the U.S. spent a trillion on to find. So far Bush has been unsuccessful but has made many new friends in the form of Bullfrogs and Bluegills. Word is that Bush has gotten back to Boehner and said "Stay the Course".

As far as I'm concerned, any legislator, Republican or Democrat, who would hold the general welfare of the United States, and the common good of the citizenry, hostage to partisan political gain is a traitor to both Constitution and country. The President cannot in good conscience acquiesce to partisan political blackmail.

Dear Rep. Boehner: You seem to be operating under a misconception I'd like to straighten out for you- The fact that the the country has a spending problem is not lost on most of us. In fact, many of us knew the country had a spending problem when Ronald Reagan told us we did...right before he took the federal debt from $900 billion to $2.7 trillion. We also knew spending was a problem while George W. Bush was running against those "tax and spend" Democrats...right before he increased federal spending by 48% over and above the "tax and spend" Democrat that came before him.

So now we're left with a $17 trillion debt that your party is at least as responsible for as is Obama's. So if you could please get your guys and girls together and come up with a viable plan to cut spending and present that plan to us, we'd be happy to look at it.

Oh, some quick parameters though- If you're going to cut SS or Medicare, you have to do it starting NOW, not in 10 years when your core constituents are too old to worry about it. Also, if you're going to cut welfare or WIC or other areas of the social safety net, simultaneously giving a tax break to Mitt Romney's neighbors is a bad idea. And finally, if "Obamacare" is really so repugnant to you (now that it's a Democratic law rather than the Republican idea it was originally), then I'm sure it'll be easy for you to come up with an alternative to it that covers everyone in the country. In other words...you're really not fooling anybody, you have no ideas, and no platform to promote other than one of fear.

“I went into the meeting thinking that we might be going to surrender to the President,” said Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who, along with Gohmert and 10 other House Republicans, tried in January to take away the Speaker’s gavel. “What I got out of the meeting is that we’re still standing strong.”

This is the problem. The attitude that it's surrender or win-at-all-costs, and thus while "standing strong" the country falls around you and you realise you've won nothing more than a Pyrrhic victory.

It's not a matter of surrendering, and while you paint yourself into that corner, you won't do what is needed. Govern.

Let it all crash, Just do that. Let's all plunge into a great depression, something that will outshine the 1929 crash. Why not just get to where this country has been heading for decades. Remove the poor, just take them out of the equation and let the rich duke it out for control. I'm so sick and tired of politics and the wasting of tax dollars. Get the tax reform we desperately need here and collect some of the taxes from the greedy corporations like Apple and GE. The backs of the little people can only bear so much before they break.

all this brinksmanship reminds of a movie... Dr. Strangelove... Representative Boehner is Major T. J. "King" Kong. He's going to drop that bomb and end civilization. To bad the "roosskies" are sitting on the sidelines laughing their a$$es off as the United State commits hari-kari without any help from them.

This is simple. Boehner needs to let the full house vote on a clean CR. Let the will of the people be heard with a full vote from their representatives. Is this about John Boehner keeping his speakership or is this about hearing the voice of all the people? John Boehner needs to answer why he's blocking this vote and stop giving us a load of baloney in his press conferences

Their conduct is the result of being unduly influenced by Foreign money. There is no other reason why elected officials would advocate for "anarchy" or "destruction of the government" or "austerity" that starves Commerce and real, living Americans.

"Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow." - Aesop

@DeanBlake The Tea Party stands for as bunch of people who think they represent America while failing to realize that most of America sees them as radical extremists. Throw in some Dixie inspired resentment of minorities and Voila, a modern day reincarnation of the John Birch Society.

@JoeIrvinConover The people's representatives cannot acquiesce to partisan political blackmail. The Redistributor-in-Chief is the ONLY President to refuse to negotiate over a debt increase. The ONLY one. Look it up if you know how to educate yourself, instead of being spoon fed by Socialists.

@barneydidit Good summation of how we got into this mess, and how the Republican party tries to re-write history so that someone else has to take the blame for their choices to spend money and declare war around the world (generating hate and fear by the people of other nations towards the U.S. in the process).

One of the reasons for this maniacal push to de-fund the national health initiative is that with oil starting to flow around the country in huge quantities (due to the shale oil development currently going on), and manufacturing coming back to the U.S., and the technological revolutions currently underway that the U.S. is leading, within six months to a year the U.S. will be swimming in so much wealth that these social initiatives will be fully funded AND the national debt will go down all at the same time. And this wealth won't be going solely into the pockets of a few of the super rich - Obama will see that the American middle class get restored. AND THAT is making the super rich, who are pulling the Republican Party's strings ANGRY!

the republicans greatest fear is that Obamacare will work and bring down costs. They've wanted him to fail at everything since the first day he took office. If they thought Obamacare would fail, they'd have let it go and reaped the election gains that would have went with it.

@Hitch_Lives The Rodeo Clown of The United States is the first and ONLY President never to negotiate over the debt ceiling. Note that the clown did just that with GW Bush when he voted against raising the debt ceiling back in '06. You are almost as full of it as the Rodeo Clown of The United States.

@sacredh@barneydidit Obama care like all socialistic BOMBS will never work.. look at history.. I know thats embarrassing .. All great countries are destroyed by liberal crap, Europe now is buckling under all the entitlement BS... its a matter of time that this once great country will be a left wing hole in the ground..

@KyleLyles@mantisdragon91@DeanBlake My point is as can be seen by the polls, that this population you speak of, is dwarfed by the number of people who despise what the American Taliban has turned the GOP into.

Completely ignored by Kyle (and Rusty - but i'm not surprised there, he's a rabid tool who froths at the mouth, and can't keep his word because he has no integrity) leave out is that the GOP is trying to run the country on ideas rejected by the people - both in the congressional elections (they took a beating in 2012) and the Presidential election where Obama ran on this very issue.

So complain all you want about Obama - remember he was re-elected saying he'd do this.

The minority cannot rule the majority, otherwise, what is the point of elections?

@KyleLyles@j45ashton@DeanBlake@sacredh@barneydidit Yeah because if we start over there's no way any fraud could happen Kyle. Even if we take the upper end of the estimates for SS fraud- $1.5 billion, that's still less than 1%. of total payments. If I was losing less than 1% of my revenues in my business to fraud, I'd be concerned, but not ready to declare bankruptcy and start over....unless of course I had a deep, ingrained disdain for my business like you seem to have for anything created by a Democrat.

@j45ashton@DeanBlake@sacredh@barneydidit And Social Insecurity is a Socialist play. It's nothing like what the first major Socialist in Chief, FDR ever imagined. Same for Medicare. We should kill both programs completely and start over. Have you looked at the SSI corruption? I have. It's time to kill these programs off, and start over. And I've lived in Europe and Asia. Guess what, many of those programs look a hell of a lot like the USA's medical system. Not the horrible UK's completely broken Social NHS system, but thank God for that!

@DeanBlake@sacredh@barneydidit Sorry Dean, I phased out of the conversation when you called Obamacare "socialistic". That choice of adjectives told me you either have no idea what socialism is, or what Obamacare is...perhaps neither.

@DeanBlake@sacredh@barneydidit Hmmm...well some people called Social Security socialism. Same with Medicare. But better than that...from personal experience..in the 90s my job took me all over the world and everywhere I went in Europe I asked my colleagues about their healthcare systems. They complained quite a bit about one thing and another. Then I asked them the crucial question: would they prefer to change over to our system. Not one of them ever said yes..